[Smt-talk] Burmeister & analysis

[Paul Siskind]

Hi Folks:  Chiming in on what Michael Morse said....

When I define "analysis" for my students, I tell them that analysis does
the following three things:

1) Makes truthful observations about the music.
2) Makes observations that are not immediately apparent to the average
observer.
3) Makes meaningful/insightful observations.

Obviously, #2 and #3 are contextually dependent, as defined by whomever
your intended reader/audience is.

For example: A simple chordal analysis or an analysis of the
sonata-allegro form of a piece might be satisfactorily
"meaningful/"insightful" to an undergraduate theory class, but not to an
audience of professional theorists.

Another example: tallying up the number of times each scale degree appears
in a tonal piece might satisfy criteria #1 and #2, but the tally itself
does not constitute "analysis" unless the writer makes some insightful
observations about the data.

Thus, early theoretical writings (e.g. the mere classification of the
modes of chants) might not seem like "analysis" to us today; but in its
time, they could have seemed more "insightful," as a contribution to the
burgeoning development of modal theory.

I find that this context-related definition avoids some of the absolutist
nit-picking that we can sometimes get bogged down in.

...Paul





>
>The more I think about this, the
> more it seems to me that analysis means little more than making a
> connection between musical details and a broader essential conception.
>
> Michael MorseTrent UniversityPeterborough, Oshawa
>
> Is that an analysis in any modern (or less modern) sense of the
>       word? I really doubt so. Certainly, Burmeister's concern with the
>       rhetorical organization of a musical composition is a landmark in
>       the history of music theory and analysis; but was his an
>       "analysis"?
>
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Dr. Paul A. Siskind                        Home:
Professor of Composition and Theory        Sweet Child Music
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